Anyone save their or donate it?
Anyone save their or donate it?
I wanted to donate it and talked to the hospital about it but they didn't have any arrangements to collect the cords so they disposed it.
Re: baby’s cord blood
I did. I had to fill out a form before the delivery and they donated it I suppose. I was in too much pain to remember and I just kept signing 
but I remember after the delivery, the placenta was in a box that had some labels on it and soon after someone came and took it away.
Re: baby's cord blood
I banked one, offered to bank the other 2 but the hospital declined. We paid $1200 for the collection, testing, transport and banking and then pay a yearly fee of $90 for cryogenic storage.
Re: baby's cord blood
??? Whats all this about? What exactly is donated / saved, and what is it used for???
Re: baby's cord blood
The umbilical cord contains the blood going between mother and baby. Its rich in "stem cells" which can potentially be used for treatment of serious diseases - so far it can be used instead of bone marrow transplants and to treat some certain cancers. With all the research going on, there will be many more diseases it can treat in the future. So they say. We decided to do it because there was one teenager in the family who had hodgkins lymphoma and required a bone marrow transplant using his younger brothers donated marrow. This can be a hereditary disease and also is one that can be treated with the stem cells from cord blood.
Re: baby's cord blood
^ so why would you have to pay the initial fees and then the yearly fees afterwards? i thought the hospital would take the cord and use it for their own purposes or any patients that required it. or is it that you or your children can use it in the future if necesary?
Re: baby's cord blood
We paid the fees and storage costs to keep the cord blood for our own use. It was quite involved to get it done - the cord blood bank sent my doc a collection kit with instructions and my doc had to contact the cord blood bank as soon as I arrived at the hospital so they could immediately send a courier to pick it up and get it to the blood bank. We can call the blood bank at any time if the need should arise for us to use it and the cord blood bank can also contact me if they have a patient who could use it (that was an option we signed up for).
Most hospitals discard cord blood since they do not have the facilities to collect and store it. Its an expensive endeavor and its still very new.
Re: baby's cord blood
^ ahh, i see.
thanks for the explanation!
Re: baby's cord blood
if someone have more than one child, do they need to save all of their children's cord blood or just one is fine since siblings can donate their cord bloods to eachother.